Is Your Child a Budding Dancer?

Investigate the Possibilities at the Fall Celtic Festival

Irish Dance and Highland Dance are two captivating and highly popular Celtic dance forms that you will likely see performed at the Fall Celtic Festival. Today both kinds of dancing are commonly practised by people from all different ethnic backgrounds--in much the same way that St Patrick's Day is now celebrated not just in Celtic locales but all over the world, from Argentina, Mexico, and St. Croix to Singapore and Japan. Sheryl Joyner, founder of Sheryl Joyner Highland Dancers (whose troupe is shown above wearing traditional kilts made of pleated tartan cloth), told Citytv's Breakfast Television that Ontario now has more Highland dancers than Scotland, the country where Highland Dance originated!

Did you know that watching Celtic dance could actually provide the inspiration to give it a try? Barbara Goggin, founder of the Goggin-Stewart School of Irish Dance, says that--no matter whether her students are attracted by the sumptuous costumes, catchy music, or intricate step patterns, and no matter whether they decide to dance purely for recreation or at a competitive level--the experience that usually motivates them to begin Irish dancing in the first place is watching Irish dancers perform. Goggin adds that some dancers or their families are attracted to Celtic dance forms because the costumes tend to be relatively modest in contrast to the more revealing outfits associated with some other types of dance.

Certainly, the benefits of learning to dance in any genre are numerous for children. In their 2024 book Raising Mentally Strong Kids, renowned brain expert Daniel G. Amen and youth behaviour and learning expert Charles Fay recommend that children regularly practise a variety of brain-building activities and identify dancing as one of four optimal ways to help children build coordination. (The other three are juggling, table tennis, and yoga.)

Other reputed advantages of learning to dance for children include:

• Physical Benefits - Improved physical fitness, gross motor skills, weight control, strength, stamina, flexibility, balance, and posture

• Mental Benefits - Better focus, concentration, discipline, memory, spatial awareness, and stress management

• Social Benefits - Building confidence and skills in teamwork, self-expression, forming social connections and friendships

Two Ways To Watch Dancing at the Festival

While the Fall Celtic Festival takes place outdoors on the grounds of the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre, two major Irish dance competitions run back to back inside the Centre: the Oakville Feis on Saturday, followed by the Crown and Rose Feis on Sunday. (Feis, pronounced fesh, is the Gaelic word for gathering.) The 2024 Destination Feis issue of Irish Dancing Magazine recommended: "The Fall Celtic Festival provides a lot of family fun over the weekend, making this a top destination [double] feis to attend!" Over the past two years, registrations for these two dance competitions adjoining our Festival have grown by 100 entries. Right now they attract some 400 dancers a day from Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.

At intervals, you can see the winners of both dance competitions perform in a Parade of Campions on our Festival stage. As a second way to watch the dancing, festival-goers are also welcome to go inside the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre to see the dance competitions under way. One way or another, the many opportunities to observe Celtic dancing at the Fall Celtic Festival just might inspire one of the kids in your life to start performing reels, jigs, or flings, and reaping the many physical, mental, and social benefits of dance for children.